“What the f$%?” North Shore’s Rick Kane makes shock cameo at Palm Springs Surf Club!

“The original king is still the king!”

The actor Matt Adler, whose turn as the wavepool surfer turned Pipeline hero Rick Kane in the 1987 film North Shore shifted the B-grade thespian into cult stardom, has made a triumphant return to pool surfing at the just-unveiled Palm Springs Surf Club. 

Adler, now fifty-seven, riding a magnificent Matt Biolos-shaped middy and with a laugh that rings through the tank like a baritone bell, cameos in the Palm Springs Surf Club pool alongside Blair Conklin, Italo Ferreira, Parker Coffin, Josh and Sierra Kerr. 

Matt Adler is clearly proud of his mesmeric pull and the fascination Rick Kane holds for platoons of what are now old men. 

Watch the beautiful moment the Palm Springs Surf Club’s “wave-making maestro” Cheyne Magnusson is told the little fellow in front of him with the strange eyes burning like green lasers in their deep sockets, is actually…Rick Kane. 

“You don’t recognise him?”

“No!” 

“You don’t, huh!” 

“No!”

“Take a good look at this guy. It’s…Rick!” 

Magnusson explodes, “What the fuck!” 

“That’s Rick, dude, that’s Rick! That’s Rick, dog!” 

In the middle of this year, Charlie Smith wrote of the lingering appeal of North Shore to the middle-aged surfer.

Every middle-to-upper-middle age cis white male has seen the classic multiple times. First on VHS, later on DVD, lastly streaming. It tells the story of Rick Kane, an Arizona surf standout who wins a contest in a pool, a drawing kit, a belt buckle and enough airfare for a trip to Oahu’s fabled North Shore. Once there he is treated to a heavy wake-up call via the powerful waves, sharp reef and serious local justice. He falls for Sam George’s ex-wife, is taken under the wing of a Pyzel-like surfboard shaper and eventually beats Laird Hamilton by discovering his soul.